


you put your hand in mine and pull me back from things divine

by Meridas



Series: won't be alone again [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Resurrection Ritual, Temporary Character Death, aka Yasha Does It Her Damn Self
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 07:45:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16404236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meridas/pseuds/Meridas
Summary: It takes Yasha the better part of two months to track down the man she’s looking for. She does not tell the Mighty Nein where she’s going.Molly is hers. She’ll get him back alone if she has to.





	you put your hand in mine and pull me back from things divine

**Author's Note:**

> titles comes from "Glory" by Bastille

 

It takes Yasha the better part of two months to track down the man she’s looking for. She does not tell the Mighty Nein where she’s going. If they assume she’s doing her usual errands for her god, that’s fine. She is trying her best not to be angry at them. She doesn’t need their help, not with this.

Molly is hers. She’ll get him back alone if she has to.

Finally, finally, Yasha ducks into a tavern in Odesslor and sees the man she’s looking for. He isn’t hard to spot, for all the trouble he’s been to track down. he’s easily the shiniest thing in the room, and the hulking metal construct behind him is a bit of a giveaway. As Yasha approaches, the construct swivels toward her, its vacant eyes glowing in the dim room.

Yasha places the book gently down on the table in front of the man. “Is this you?” she asks. “Taryon Darington?”

He perks up, a bright smile beaming from his face. “It is indeed! Yes, I’m Taryon Darington, adventurer and writer, of the Darington Brigade! Perhaps you’ve come to join my band of adventurers?” he adds hopefully, eyeing the ragged backpack and gleaming greatsword on her back.

“Um. No.” Yasha takes a seat across the table. She drums her fingers on the book. “I was looking for you. In your book, you write about… well, about a lot of things, amazing things, but… You write about ways to bring back people who died before their time. Can you really do that?”

“Certainly,” he replies, and her heart leaps to her throat. “Well, not me, personally, not unless it happens very quickly. But I do know someone—well, you read my book! You must know about Pike Trickfoot, cleric of Sarenrae!”

“Yes,” Yasha blurts out. “Her.” _I need her_. She squashes her voice down. Takes a deep breath.

“I know it gets harder, in the Dwendalian Empire,” she says quietly, “but I—I need someone like Pike Trickfoot. I need to bring someone back—exactly as he was, no funny business.” She pauses. “I’m ready to do whatever you need me to do, to pay for it.”

Taryon regards her, frowning slightly now, looking her up and down. Yasha clenches her fists under the table, trying to swallow down her nerves. This is her best chance. She hasn’t found another credible source both strong enough and potentially willing. Her heart trembles at the idea of losing more time.

Finally, he leans back in his chair. “Doty,” he declares, “take this down! ‘A woman of stunning height and musculature approached me in a dusky tavern. She had the face of an angel, and an intriguing proposition that would lead me on a new adventure.’ That’s all for now!” He leans across the table, propped on one elbow as if they might arm-wrestle. Yasha shifts in her chair. She’s fairly certain she can take him.

“You,” he points at her, “make an interesting case, young madam! How about this: I’m a bit short on Brigadiers at the moment, and I’m… let’s say, between heroic quests. I can put in a call to some people, have my good friend Pike meet us here in a little bit. I think, in repayment, you can let me tag along and take some notes, maybe write this story to its happy ending. It can be part of my new book! How does that sound?”

Yasha’s breath catches in her throat. “You—really? You’d… you can do that? You would do that?”

“Sure!” Taryon’s smile is back to beaming. “This will make a great story, er—wait, I admit I don’t always remember this part, but I should probably get your name for the book. Doty?”

“Yasha,” she says softly. “My name is Yasha.” She clears her throat. “And we’re going to save my best friend, Molly.”

…

The morning dawns bright but foggy, and Yasha finds herself squinting into the shining mist. It doesn’t help that Taryon’s helmet is on his head this morning and gleams blindingly in the filtered sunlight. Standing there squinting is definitely not doing much to improve her first impression on these new people.

She breathes deeply. She hates meeting new people. Molly always did this part when they entered new towns. He opened doors and started conversations, and Yasha just went where he went. She followed Molly around and flexed her muscles and showed off the sword just in case it was one of those towns that didn’t take kindly to tieflings or carnival folk or both. She backed him up even in his most ridiculous tall tales and she mostly kept his attention on track and she kept him safe in case—

Yasha shoves the thought away. _I am protecting him_ , she tells herself as fiercely as she can. _I am getting him back and I will take care of him like I should have._

_I will fix this, Molly. I promise._

Suddenly the tree outlined in morning light shifts. It looks to Yasha like the tree splits open from the inside, a bright doorway appearing in the sturdy trunk. A small figure darts through, followed immediately by a tall silhouette with a halo of back lit red hair. The tree groans and closes again behind them, and Yasha stands blinking at the two new women in front of her.

Taryon steps forward immediately, arms out. “Antlers!” he exclaims, and the red-haired druid breaks into a grin.

“You don’t change, Tary,” she says fondly, accepting the embrace with a pat.

Yasha tries not to stare at either of them, but it’s difficult. These two exude confidence, capability. They are clad in shining armor and cascading feathers, and even Yasha can sense the powerful magic radiating from them.

Pike Trickfoot is a diminutive woman, gnomish, but she wears heavy golden armor and meets Yasha’s eyes with steady warmth and calm. It could be the diffusing morning light in her white hair, but Pike seems to glow, just slightly. She is battle-scarred and stands straight and tall with clear eyes.

“Pike Trickfoot,” she says, quiet in the morning light. She holds out her hand. The height difference between them is almost startling—Pike seems like she carries herself so much taller. “I… I’m Yasha. It’s an honor to meet you. Thank you… thank you for coming. Thank you for trying.”

Pike shakes her hand, firm and warm. “I’m glad Tary sent for me,” she replies. “I remember how dangerous it is, just getting started out in the world.” She smiles and tugs on a white lock of hair. “I was lucky when it happened to me. My friends got me to help, and Sarenrae wanted me back.” Her keen, warm eyes take Yasha in. She’s sure that Pike can see the sleepless nights, the loneliness and anger that she’s trying hard to bury under determination.

“Your friend is lucky to have you, too,” Pike adds quietly.

Yasha’s throat is tight. “I hope so,” she says. “I wasn’t—I—”

She clears her throat. “Um, so, it’s a ways east from here. We should probably get going.”

“We’ve never been to this part of Wildemount with you, Tary,” the druid says, striding up to Yasha and Pike. “I’m Keyleth, by the way. I hear we’re going to go get a friend of yours back?”

Yasha nods. “Mollymauk Tealeaf,” she says firmly. She takes a deep breath and picks up her backpack. “Yeah. He’s waited for me long enough.”

…

It’s a two-week journey on foot back to… back to Molly. The druid’s presence makes it easier to push through the Pearlbow Wilderness, but it’s still slower than Yasha can stand. Some days, it’s only Pike Trickfoot’s calm confidence that keeps Yasha from sprinting toward her target until her lungs burst in her chest.

But she has her end of the bargain to fulfill. Over the course of their trek, Yasha tells Taryon her story. Well—it’s not really her story. Yasha’s story is bleak and full of shades of gray, very little but bloodshed and hurt.  She wants to pay her debt with a happy story.

So she tells him about Molly.

Yasha is not one comfortable with the spotlight, but she talks herself hoarse to this small, strange audience. She tells them about this person who greeted her with bright eyes and a grin and no questions asked. She tells them about long afternoons on the road and rushed days putting up the tents. She talks for hours about a little shit with a mad cackle and a soft heart. She recounts nights spent watching over him as he made faces light up with visions of a better future. She shows them the book he gave her, their inside joke with a good-luck wish tucked between the pages.

She even tells them how he broke her heart. How she was weak, and he tried to save her, and he died while she was helpless. Her voice cracks that night, and Pike breaks out a bottle of something dark and strong, and they pass it around with their own shadows in their eyes.

This is her payment, though. She upends her heart in front of strangers and lets a construct record her bleeding soul because this is the least of what she would do to bring her Molly back into the world.

…

There is still snow on the ground. The clearing looks almost exactly as it was the last time she left it—snow on the ground, grey skies above, bare winter trees.

There are still out-of-season flowers poking out of the snow here and there, surrounding a bare stake hammered into the ground.

Keyleth coos when they approach the glade. “Oh, it’s pretty here!”

Yasha’s stomach clenches. “Please don’t,” she grits out.

The druid looks over at her. “Oh. You didn’t plant these? I thought you liked flowers?”

“I—I do,” Yasha says. “But this isn’t—” She closes her eyes. Nausea roils in her gut at the memory. She doesn’t want the _earth_ to remember Molly. She didn’t ask for—for someone new, someone who never even knew her Molly, to step in and fuck around with his grave, with his _body_. It’s Molly’s body. He fought hard to make it his, and she’s not giving up on him and she should never have let some random person cast any bullshit magic and fuck with him and—

Yasha forces the air out of her lungs, holds it, drags in a slow and shuddering breath. She does it again. Her hands are shaking. Slowly, deliberately, she breathes and uncurls her fists. Her anger isn’t going to help Molly at this point. She’s so close. Soon it won’t matter.

“Please don’t touch the flowers,” she manages, voice rough in her throat. She pushes gently past Keyleth, approaching the bare marker.

She drops her backpack on the ground. Then she hesitates. She needs to—to get him out. There’s absolutely no way she’s leaving Molly to claw his own way back out of the ground. But it’s frozen: even the loosely-packed dirt over the grave is rock-hard and what if she hurts him—

She jumps at a light touch to her elbow. “I can help,” Keyleth offers gently. “I can move the earth, if you want? I’ll be very careful, I promise. I won’t hurt him.”

Yasha lets out a shuddering breath. “Please,” she whispers, and she is so grateful that Keyleth asked her, and so grateful that she turns away and pretends not to notice the tears streaking down Yasha’s cheeks. She wipes them away and gets to work.

She clears out a space in the snow as Keyleth slowly works through the cold, hard earth. Pike puts her hair up and begins to prepare her spell. Yasha reaches into her backpack and carefully pulls out the diamond she has saved for all these weeks. She has killed and scraped and starved herself to pool a thousand gold together for this. She won’t tell Molly what it took, if he asks. He would try to pay her back, and all she wants is to see him again. There’s nothing else in the world she would spend the money on. Pike takes it from her carefully, and gives her a nod.

Yasha sits back on her heels, breathing deeply. She hears footsteps crunching through the snow, one set light and the other heavy, clanging metal.

“You know,” Tary says, kneeling beside her, “I’ve seen this done a time or two. You’ll have a chance to help out, when the time comes.”

Yasha swallows down the lump in her throat. “Thank you,” she gets out. She clears her throat, once, twice, to no avail.

Out of the corner of her eye, she catches a glimpse of blue and silver, now resting on top of the frozen soil. Keyleth gestures with her hand, slow and confident, and the earth shifts and slides until Molly’s shroud is resting in the center of Pike’s ritual preparation. The cleric glances up at Yasha. Whatever expression is on her face, Pike leaves the tapestry alone and places the diamond carefully atop the folds of material.

“All set,” she says. Her gaze is calm and confident when she meets Yasha’s eyes. “Are you ready?”

Yasha is so impatient to have Molly back that she thinks she tastes ozone. She has never felt less ready for anything in her life.

She nods.

Keyleth and Taryon step respectfully back, leaving just Yasha, Pike, and the diamond winking in the winter sunlight. Then Pike begins her prayer, and the world leans in to listen.

Some part of Yasha recognizes the words, but she lets them wash over her. The hair on her neck stands on end, gooseflesh prickling all across her body. The moment stretches out impossibly long, and she finds she’s holding her breath, trembling and unwilling to break the spell Pike is weaving.

Finally, Pike looks up and nods to her. “If you have anything to say that might convince him to come back,” she says, “now’s the time.”

Yasha takes a deep breath. She kneels down next to the tapestry and reaches into her bag.

“I didn’t want it to get damaged,” she murmurs, pulling out a carefully-folded bundle of deep maroon and blue fabric. “And I knew you would want it back.” She turns Molly’s coat over in her hands, tracing the edge of the hood with her fingertips. Her hands haven’t been the steadiest these last two months, but she worked hard to make sure this came out pretty, if not perfect. She needed something to do with her hands on long, lonely nights. Something that felt like putting beauty into the world instead of hurt, something Mollymauk would like. She’s pleased with the result.

“I hope you like what I added to it,” she says out loud. She closes her eyes. In her mind she can picture those nights by the fire, Molly bent over and holding the coat up to the firelight, painstakingly adding more color, more flair, more secret Moonweaver charms into the fabric. He always patched it up so lovingly whenever it got torn. She couldn’t bear to see it left abandoned to the elements. She didn’t have the patience to wait and see if he would reclaim it by himself.

“Molly,” she says carefully, “you know I’m not the best with words. I hope you can hear me anyway. I just—I want you to come back. I want you to be exactly who you are, with me. And I wanted to do something that would make you smile, to say I’m sorry that you—that I wasn’t there when you needed me.” She leans forward and places the coat carefully on the ground next to him. “I remembered you loved those silk flowers in Hupperdook. You gave me one, a little yellow one that won’t fade, and I like it very much.” She runs her finger along the new embroidery, bright pops of yellow and blue and pink that wind along the edge of his hood. A little silk flower crown, whenever he wants it. “I hope you know that I love you very much, Mollymauk. Please come back to me. Please.”

Pike closes her eyes, clasps her hands, and speaks the final words of her prayer.

The diamond explodes into radiance. Before Yasha even has a chance to shout, to shield her eyes, it has already shattered into harmless, glittering motes.

There’s a long moment of silence. Then the tapestry bucks and there’s a rattling gasp and a muffled shout of fear.

Yasha lunges forward. The tapestry tears under her hands but he’ll forgive her for that, Molly will forgive her because Molly is _alive_ to do so. She rips the blue and silver material aside and her hands are on his shoulders, his fingers gripping at her arms as she helps him sit up. Her voice falters on his name and her breath catches in her throat.

Hazy red eyes blink at her a few times. Then a raspy voice says, “Yasha?”

Yasha puts her hands on his face, his dear precious face as he blinks at her, woozy like an early morning after a late night. He mumbles her name again, leans into her with a quiet hum as she pours every ounce of her healing talent into him. She can feel tears, hot and fast down her face and she doesn’t give a single shit that she’s crying because Molly reaches up and pats her face clumsily.  She’s laughing and tears are spilling from her eyes, smearing across Molly’s face as she kisses his cheeks, his nose, his mouth, presses her lips against his forehead and thanks the heavens that she is allowed to have this back.

“Yasha—” Molly fumbles with the tapestry, still wrapped around his legs like a blanket. “What—Yasha, what happened? You’re, hey, you’re okay! You’re here! Are you alright? What happened to the others?!”

He looks so confused and worried, and she can’t help but smile at him, always concerned for his friends. She’s going to give him _such a lecture_ about his protective tendencies later.

“They’re okay,” Yasha assures him. She smooths his hair away from his face. “Everyone’s okay, Molly, we’re okay now.”

She pulls him in again, winds her arms around him as tightly as she dares. She rests her chin between his horns and closes her eyes. Molly is warm and heavy in her arms, his breath puffing steadily against her throat. “We’re okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was a fic that ate my brain and demanded to be written, and I'm actually really pleased with how it turned out. I hope you guys liked it and I'd love to know what you think!
> 
> (There's an angrier prequel and maybe a happier M9 reunion sequel. I haven't decided yet whether I should post them to a series or just let this be.)
> 
> There's a playlist for this fic, too!  
> https://open.spotify.com/user/a.mackenzie13/playlist/5E90cDdVIbl019Bepm4fEU?si=-gM-pCtKSjaU5WlGFiZSpQ


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